Laura Beth Fields (Guest Blogger)

So I was thinking the other day about some awesome stuff that has been happening in Oasis Church and I wanted to share some of it with all of you, so that you can celebrate with me. I decided that it would be stupid for me to try to describe what's been taking place when I could just let people tell you first hand. So I'm going to try to have a guest blogger each week to share with you how God is using Oasis to impact their lives and the lives of people that they know and love. Our very first Guest blogger is Laura Beth Fields. She is such a sweetheart. I encourage you to read what she has to say, and give God the glory. So, without further jabbering, here is Laura Beth Fields.

This past Sunday was amazing to me, it was the best service we've ever had at Oasis. I brought my Brother, Nephew and Cousin with me. We had a packed house!!! The message was on fire and my boys were completely focused and quiet . After church, my little nephew came running out and told me he made some new friends and learned to forgive others. My heart began to smile. On the way home the only thing the kids talked about was church and how much they enjoyed it, and how cool the preacher was and that they wanted to come back every Sunday. I think i drove almost the whole way home with tears streaming down my face. I was so overjoyed I thought I was going to burst, and i still feel like i am going to burst with joy. God is doing some major things in my life and in my heart. He knows exactly what I need and where I need to be, and that's Oasis! I was welcomed and accepted right away. They wanted me as much as God wants me! When I come home from church, I am ready for the week to fly by so I can come back. I have never been so hungry to hear Gods word before, and I have never been fed the way I've been fed lately. The layers of hurt, shame, fear, bitterness, guilt and doubt are being stripped away week by week. Before I re-dedicated my life, I forgot what it was like to have joy and happiness in my heart. I also forgot what it felt like to have control of my life . I had no rules to follow and no boundaries I couldn't cross. My morals and values had been buried. But most importantly my soul and my very being was decaying, right before my eyes. I can't even begin to describe how thankful I am to God for His love and mercy, and how thankful I am for Oasis church! Everyday i am reminded of my past, but God reassures me of my future and everlasting life!

Now that is FREAKING AWESOME! Kids and teens excited about church! A life restored by love, grace, mercy, acceptance...... and JESUS! A value and moral system restored. Hope Restored. A LIFE RESTORED BY THE POWER OF A RISEN SAVIOR! The love of a church family. Oasis you people are amazing! I am so proud to be the pastor of such passionate people! Do we have everything figured out?...NO! Are we perfect people?... NO! as a matter of fact, that's the whole deal. We are all really really screwed up people and we know it. Jesus is what makes the difference in our lives. The thing about Oasis is that you guys are real. Keep it up Oasis. For all of you reading this, Thank You for celebrating with us. Give God the Glory. It is His power and His salvation that changes lives!

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Just a quick update

I just want to take a second and remind everyone about the November 6th show at Homemade genius. Standing small and a few other bands will be there. The show starts at 8:30. Come on out and buy some snacks and listen to the great music. The proceeds go to help homemade genius.

Prejudices (Sunday Sum-up.)

Today was intense. It was a hard message for me to preach. We had a lot of audio, video and lighting elements and I must say that our production team did a fantastical job! Seriously! If you listen to the podcast, just know that it won't do justice to what happened today. But listen to it anyway if you missed. Warning though: if you are churched, it may be a hard pill to swallow. I know that it was for me. Here are a few random thoughts.

-Our preferences are often times prejudices.

-We had a packed house today!

-Jesus is stirring the hearts of people with excitement about what is happening at Oasis and in Greenwood.

-We had a family today who is planting another church in Greenwood. It's called New Vision and they meet in the Greenwood Community Theater once a month right now. Dickey is a great guy and a great friend. He loves Jesus with all that he is. God is doing something amazing in Greenwood now!

-We make big statements with our small actions that come from our prejudices.

-Your kids know why you want let them spend the night in the home of people of other races! It speaks of your heart to your children... Just so you know.

-When we get to heaven, we will be worshiping with people of all Nations, tribes and languages. The same people that we treat as second class citizens will be at the feet of Jesus right beside us. At the great white throne! Why can't we worship beside them now!?

-We didn't talk about this today specifically, but when it comes to interracial dating, here is a statement that I think is ridiculous. "Well you don't see redbirds with bluebirds." man! a friend reminded me of that statement today after church. I've heard that so many times, and before I knew Jesus I bought that crap. I didn't just buy the crap, I took it home, cooked it and ate it... yea, ate the crap! But you know what I realize now... It's just a load of crap!... You know what, by that same logic we could justify walking up to visitors who come into our homes and humping their legs as a welcome.... Seriously! we've all seen the dogs that hump peoples legs. When I was growing up, we had a little black poodle that would hump everyone's leg. Needless to say, we got rid of the dog. But I mean, if we are going to justify our actions and prejudices by what we see in the animal kingdom, then HEY, let's at least be consistent. Why don't we all just start sniffing each other's butts every time that we see each other. If you are going to be prejudice, please find a better way to justify it.

-Jesus went to the socially unacceptable places and showed grace, mercy, love and kindness to those who were referred to as dogs back in the day.

-I'm so sick of justified hate in the church!

-I think that often times, the most prevalent prejudice from church people are of those who we deem dirty and hopeless. Oh, we would never say it, but our actions say more than our words could ever say on this issue.

-The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord, and the second is to love your neighbor. You can measure how well you are really living up to the first commandment by measuring how much we live up to the second command. If we truly love Jesus, the rest WILL follow.

-BEER!

-Wow, how many of you cringe at that word? Maybe for legitimate reasons, but is it because there is a prejudice within you?

-We have got to take active steps to tear down the walls of prejudice in our lives and the walls that we build in the lives of others.

-God commands us to share Jesus with the world, but we tend to actually build walls between people and Jesus with our preferences... Prejudices.

-I'm going to post the videos that we used in our gathering today on Facebook and You tube.

-Here are the you tube links

-Video #1

-Video #2

-Video #3

Jibberish

So Today I was sitting on the porch putting new strings in my boots while waiting on my family to get home. When they pulled up, my wife rolled down the back window to reveal a sweet little girl talking away 90 miles per hour. The only thing that I could understand was Hey Daddy! owjdonvnvnalk jasdlnueuj kjhgunfhwaponzghfgh. You know, even though I couldn't understand anything but "hey daddy", everything that she was saying completely thrilled my heart. Let me ask you this. When you talk to God, Do you think that it's the words or the attitude with which you speak the words that matter the most? Do you think that it's the fact that you give God lip service on occasion that matters most to Him or the fact that even though you don't fully know what you are saying to Him, you say it with such complete adoration for who He is?
God's desire is for us to completely adore Him for who He is. You may say "Well, I want to adore Him, but how can I control what I feel?" My response would be "How much time do you really spend getting to know Him? How much time do you really take to learn who He is?"

Sunday Sum-up

Porn and masturbation were that topic of the message today. I know, not the most thrilling topic, but considering the fact that 70% of men struggle with porn and 25% of women also struggle with porn, don't you think that the church should be talking about this issue. Yea yea, But that's just the perverts that don't go to church right?... Um, wrong. These statistics are just the same in the church.... seriously. I can hear some people saying in their holier than thow voice, "But the pulpit just isn't a place to talk about that issue." Well, I happen to think that you would be wrong if you said that. Here is my logic. Church people are struggling with this issue, but no one wants to talk about it because it's just taboo. Well how about this, why don't we forget taboo for a change and think about grace and mercy. That's what Jesus would do, even if he didn't have a bracelet to remind Him. Here's a few random thoughts from today.

-We ALL sustain sexually impure injuries at an early age.

-We have no idea how to deal with these injuries because no one wants to talk about it.

-We'd rather have people in the church suffering through Hell on earth thinking that they are the only sicko dealing with lust, pornography and masturbation; rather than talking about the issue with grace, mercy and love.

-Today's message was not a comfortable message to preach... The cross was infinitely less comfortable for Jesus.

-Pornography, Lust and masturbation is wrecking marriages right now, today.

-For all of those who deal with this issue. Jesus Loves you, I love you and you are not some weird sicko.

-However, just because you're not some sicko, that still is no excuse to not pursue holiness as we are called to by God.

-Here are some practical steps to deal with this issue in your life.
#1. Bounce your eyes. You will see things that make you deal with lustful thoughts. Whether it's a magazine in the checkout line, an email, a pop-up on the web, a scene in a movie or TV show or just someone of the opposite sex at the mall, you will deal with it. But just because you WILL SEE that doesn't mean that you HAVE TO LOOK. When you see something, immediately look somewhere else. Bounce your eyes.
#2. Capture sinful thoughts. When you do see something. do what ever it takes to capture the thought. When you deal with the thought, you can do a lot of things. Call a friend, read the bible, turn off the TV, beat the TV with a baseball bat, unplug the computer, Go for a walk, read a book... Whatever it takes. You can go to www.XXXChurch.com and get software for your computer that will email every web page that you look at to a friend. Good stuff! There's a lot of other stuff on that site too for parents and teens and women and men and all sorts of great stuff. If you are dealing with this issue go to this site now!!!
#3. Run for your life. Seriously, run.

-Please, if you deal with this issue, please listen to our podcast. God loves you and He wants you to have a life of freedom.

-I have sooooo many more thoughts, but this blog is already really long.

-Don't justify this sin in your life. I know that it is a struggle, but it is not right. I'm not going to plead my case for this right now but you can listen to our podcast online from today to hear in more detail. www.ocgreenwood.com then click on "podcast" or just search in the itunes store with key word ocgreenwood.

Worn down, Worn out...

So I was sitting in the foyer of Chili's waiting to have lunch with another gracious pastor who is chalked full of wisdom, and I noticed that just before the door that enters into the restaurant, there is a worn down place where people have to stop and pull the door open in order to walk through into the restaurant. I just starred at it for a while and I felt like God was saying to me. "You know Curt, in your life there are going to be some spots that are worn down with a lot more stress. but what you cant see right now is that those spots that are full of stress are just like that spot in the floor that you are looking at. They will always exist at those places where you are about to enter into something sooooo good." Just like the worn out spot on the floor at Chili's is just before the door that leads into the part of the building that has so much great food, our stress spots in our life will be just before the doors that lead into times where God will do something amazing in our lives. If you are feeling crushed right now, just remember that just like grapes in a winepress, God crushes you to get the good stuff out. I'll leave you with this quote from Reggie Joiner "God doesn't use perfect pictures, He uses broken people."

Sunday Sum-up.

So sorry that it has taken me a few days to get this blog up. This past Sunday was AWESOME! I'm serious when I say that. God put some things on our minds and hearts that I know will strengthen marriages. Both currently existing marriages and marriages for the future. If you are married or plan on getting married some day, please take some time to listen to the podcast. Here are a few random thoughts from Sunday

-Sex and Marriage go hand in hand. Don't plan on having a successful marriage if you don't want to work at having a successful sex life.

-A healthy Sex life begins the day that puberty starts.

-We need to be teaching our children even before they reach puberty, to protect their marriage bed. this requires difficult/awkward conversations.

-I will not hold back from talking about a Godly perspective of sex from the pulpit just because there are some teens in our service. I LOVE our teens, and I'm going to do everything in my power to teach them what God wants in their lives... by the way, you ladies ROCK!

-Men have got to learn how to bounce their eyes... and women too, but especially men.

-Women need to learn how to bounce away from negative emotional thoughts about their spouses.

-Please don't bash your spouse! PLEASE!

-Just like smokey the bear says..."Only you can prevent Adultery."... okay so he actually says something about forest fires, but it is the same principle... take preventative measures.

-Adultery begins with YOU!

-We have got to do everything that we can to protect our marriage bed.

-The divorce rate of church people is no different than that of the unchurched...... Um, what is that saying.... Well, I know what it says to some people. I appears that Jesus makes no difference in our lives. We have got to fall in love with Jesus!

-Speaking of people calling themselves Christian but not living it. The next series that we have planned is going to ROCK! It's called "Practical Atheist" ... Gonna be intense! soooooo intense!

-This coming week is going to be a hard one to preach, but it is going to be jam packed with tough truths. Do everything that you can to be there! Set your alarm... don't hit the snooze bar... too many times.... BE THERE SUNDAY....BRING A FRIEND!!!!

Quick Thoughts

Here are a few quick thoughts.

-This past Sunday Eric, our creative Pastor was speaking with one of our teenagers and he mentioned to her that he could use her in the creative area on Sundays. Her response was "I'll do whatever I need to do." That's why I love our church. Oasis will do whatever it takes to see people's lives changed.

-We had some technical difficulties with the podcast for this past Sunday, so it won't be available. I am so sorry, but as a young understaffed church, these things will happen. Just wanted to let you guys know.

-Eric and I will be going to Catalyst conference tomorrow. We will be gone through Friday. I'll be giving updates on Twitter. Please be praying that God will use this conference to speak to us.

-Thank you so much to all of the volunteers in Oasis Church. You guys are amazing!

-I just started the process to be a book reviewer for Thomas Nelson publishing. I'll be starting my first book in a few days.

-I have an amazing family. My children are growing up too fast.

-On Sunday I'll be talking with Oasis about beginning our first small groups!

Sunday Sum-up.

Today was intense. Not the most comfortable message that I have had to preach, but I know that God spoke to people in a powerful way about their struggles. This was the first of a 4 week message series dealing with issues that we typically don't deal with in the church, because let's face it.... Christians don't deal with things like adultery, pornography, gossip, overspending, excessive gaming, drugs, alcohol or anything like that... Or maybe it's just that we're all to ashamed to admit our struggles because of how we know other Christians will look at us. Today we talked about addictions in general. Here are five practical steps to take to deal with addictions. If You want all the details, you'll have to listen to the podcast.

#1. get your addiction out of your territory.
If you deal with porn, cut off your internet. If you are a shopaholic, get rid of the sales paper. If you are addicted to gaming, get rid of your gaming system. If you are an alcoholic, get rid of the alcohol... even the wine.

#2. Make sure that your addiction doesn't have a team.
If you struggle with lust, don't hang out with perverts. If you are a recovering alcoholic, don't hang out with people who drink. If you love to gossip, don't hang out with people who gossip.

#3. Make sure that you don't deal with it alone.
God has put us on earth together to do life together. Find someone that you can confide in and let them help you and pray for you.

#4. Have an easy thought for when you are tempted.
Make sure that you memorize some key negative results of what will happen if you give in to your addiction.
such as, broken marriage, fatherless children, cancer, heart disease.

#5. Don't take that first bite.
Do what ever it takes to avoid the first bite. As long as you don't take the first bite the ball is in your court, because the first bite is always so good.

Sorry Sally, didn't mean to make you want to molten chocolate lava cake. I'll work on that message about cokes.

If you are dealing with any form of addiction, this is a website that has a few resources. http://theelephantinthepew.com/?page_id=21

Also, for those dealing specifically with an addiction to porn, here is a great site. www.xxxchurch.com this is also a good site for anyone who just would like to make sure that they protect themselves and their family from ever dealing with the affects of pornography. They have some great accountability software that will email every page that you visit each day to anyone that you specify.

Take hold of your addiction today!